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Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli

Page 970

by Marie Corelli


  And bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea.”

  The golden gates of Heaven have opened to receive Her who was so long England’s Good Angel; she has entered into her well-earned joy and rest. Age has fallen from her as falls a worn-out garment; and she has taken upon herself the nature of immortal youth, eternal love, and endless happiness. But for us who remain behind, striving to peer beyond “the portals of the sunset”; — for us who enter on a new era without her, there are dim shadows of fear and doubt which we cannot altogether dismiss from our minds. They may be vain shadows, — deceptive and transitory like the mists which sometimes herald the breaking of a glorious summer day, but they are sufficient to make such of us as take the trouble to think about anything but ourselves, pause, ere we turn away from the grave of our late beloved Monarch, and with all our hearts and minds, in loyalty and faith and hope, pray beside that grave for our Sovereign Lord, the King! Who can forget his careworn face, as he rode, Chief Mourner for the noble dead, behind his Mother’s coffin! — who was there amid all the gazing thousands that watched him on that memorable Funeral Day, that did not feel the deepest compassion for the grief which so visibly and heavily weighed upon him! Never was a sadder countenance than that of him whom we have loved as our ever genial, ever kindly, ever popular Prince of Wales; and when we think of the immense burden of public duty now laid upon his shoulders, the thousand and one things which claim his attention, the importance and necessity of his constant and unremitting study of all the affairs of State, we shall do well to remember once and for all that he is about the most hard-worked man in the realm, with the least independence, and the smallest chance of having any relaxation from the routine of his onerous splendour. And it is in the most noble and manful spirit that he has accepted his great task, with such straight and simple words as should never be forgotten: —

  “Encouraged by the confidence of that love and trust which the nation ever reposed in its late and fondly mourned Sovereign, I shall earnestly strive to walk in Her Footsteps, devoting Myself to the utmost of My powers to maintaining and promoting the highest interests of My People, and to the diligent and zealous fulfilment of the great and sacred responsibilities which, through the Will of God, I am now called to undertake.”

  And he is “called to undertake” much that ordinary people would resent, and would never have either the strength or the patience to perform. Hating ceremony, he must now always be surrounded by it; loathing the servility of courtiers and the etiquette of Court functions, he must now of all these things be the chief and centre; loving freedom, peace and privacy, he must now be everywhere in evidence, with every word commented upon, and every action noted. His position, stately and magnificent and imperial as it is, is less to be envied than that of any “gentleman at ease” living on his private means, with liberty to do as he likes, — for while a monarch is not always made aware of disloyal hearts, he has ever found it difficult to be sure of true ones, inasmuch as “they do abuse the king that flatter him.”

  Self-interest often wears the garb of honesty, and it is only the quickest ear that can catch the Falstaffian whisper,— “I will make the king do your grace; I will leer upon him as he comes by; and do but mark the countenance that he will give me!” ALL thrones are surrounded by such time-servers and creatures of circumstance, yet it is likely that the throne of King Edward VII. will be more than lavishly supplied with their company. The good heart, the generous nature, the invariable kindliness of the King’s disposition shed forth a sunshine and honey which must needs attracts flies. God save him, therefore, not so much from foreign foes, for he can quell them, but from treacherous friends! God save him from the liar and the sycophant, — the self-seeker and the hypocrite! God save him from from the false heart which offers the open hand! These are the enemies against which mighty armies are of no avail, and cannons thunder in vain. These are not fair foes; they do not march out on the open field; they are cowards who shun discovery. GOD SAVE THE KING! Again and yet again we offer up this prayer, kneeling among the flowers which cover our greatest Queen’s last resting-place! God save him, and endow him with such high faith as shall befit England’s highest ideals, — strengthen his spirit that he may unfalteringly lift the glory of the Empire to still greater glory, — grant to him and his fair Queen-Consort full grace of good days and happy life, and may we, his faithful subjects, love and honour him for high purposes, great deeds and kindly words, as we have loved and honoured his Mother, our late dear Sovereign-Lady Victoria! More love he could not ask from us, — and less we will not give!

  The Delphi Classics Catalogue

  We are proud to present a listing of our complete catalogue of English titles, with new titles being added every month. Buying direct from our website means you can make great savings and take advantage of our instant Updates service. You can even purchase an entire series (Super Set) at a special discounted price.

  Only from our website can readers purchase a complete Parts Edition of our titles. When you buy a Parts Edition, you will receive a folder of your chosen author’s works, with each novel, play, poetry collection, non-fiction book and more divided into its own special volume. This allows you to read individual novels etc. and to know precisely where you are in an eBook. For more information, please visit our Parts Edition page.

  Series Contents

  Series One

  Anton Chekhov

  Charles Dickens

  D.H. Lawrence

  Dickensiana Volume I

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Elizabeth Gaskell

  Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  George Eliot

  H. G. Wells

  Henry James

  Ivan Turgenev

  Jack London

  James Joyce

  Jane Austen

  Joseph Conrad

  Leo Tolstoy

  Louisa May Alcott

  Mark Twain

  Oscar Wilde

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  Sir Walter Scott

  The Brontës

  Thomas Hardy

  Virginia Woolf

  Wilkie Collins

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Series Two

  Alexander Pushkin

  Alexandre Dumas (English)

  Andrew Lang

  Anthony Trollope

  Bram Stoker

  Christopher Marlowe

  Daniel Defoe

  Edith Wharton

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  G. K. Chesterton

  Gustave Flaubert (English)

  H. Rider Haggard

  Herman Melville

  Honoré de Balzac (English)

  J. W. von Goethe (English)

  Jules Verne

  L. Frank Baum

  Lewis Carroll

  Marcel Proust (English)

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Nikolai Gogol

  O. Henry

  Rudyard Kipling

  Tobias Smollett

  Victor Hugo

  William Shakespeare

  Series Three

  Ambrose Bierce

  Ann Radcliffe

  Ben Jonson

  Charles Lever

  Émile Zola

  Ford Madox Ford

  Geoffrey Chaucer

  George Gissing

  George Orwell

  Guy de Maupassant

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Henrik Ibsen

  Henry David Thoreau

  Henry Fielding

  J. M. Barrie

  James Fenimore Cooper

  John Buchan

  John Galsworthy

  Jonathan Swift

  Kate Chopin

  Katherine Mansfield

  L. M. Montgomery

  Laurence Sterne

  Mary Shelley

  Sheridan Le Fanu

  Washington Irving

  Series Four

  Arnold Bennett

  Arthur Machen

 
Beatrix Potter

  Bret Harte

  Captain Frederick Marryat

  Charles Kingsley

  Charles Reade

  G. A. Henty

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Edgar Wallace

  E. M. Forster

  E. Nesbit

  George Meredith

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Jerome K. Jerome

  John Ruskin

  Maria Edgeworth

  M. E. Braddon

  Miguel de Cervantes

  M. R. James

  R. M. Ballantyne

  Robert E. Howard

  Samuel Johnson

  Stendhal

  Stephen Crane

  Zane Grey

  Series Five

  Algernon Blackwood

  Anatole France

  Beaumont and Fletcher

  Charles Darwin

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton

  Edward Gibbon

  E. F. Benson

  Frances Hodgson Burnett

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  George Bernard Shaw

  George MacDonald

  Hilaire Belloc

  John Bunyan

  John Webster

  Margaret Oliphant

  Maxim Gorky

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Radclyffe Hall

  Robert W. Chambers

  Samuel Butler

  Samuel Richardson

  Sir Thomas Malory

  Thomas Carlyle

  William Harrison Ainsworth

  William Dean Howells

  William Morris

  Series Six

  Anthony Hope

  Aphra Behn

  Arthur Morrison

  Baroness Emma Orczy

  Captain Mayne Reid

  Charlotte M. Yonge

  Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  E. W. Hornung

  Ellen Wood

  Frances Burney

  Frank Norris

  Frank R. Stockton

  Hall Caine

  Horace Walpole

  One Thousand and One Nights

  R. Austin Freeman

  Rafael Sabatini

  Saki

  Samuel Pepys

  Sir Issac Newton

  Stanley J. Weyman

  Thomas De Quincey

  Thomas Middleton

  Voltaire

  William Hazlitt

  William Hope Hodgson

  Series Seven

  Adam Smith

  Benjamin Disraeli

  Confucius

  David Hume

  E. M. Delafield

  E. Phillips Oppenheim

  Edmund Burke

  Ernest Hemingway

  Frances Trollope

  Galileo Galilei

  Guy Boothby

  Hans Christian Andersen

  Ian Fleming

  Immanuel Kant

  Karl Marx

  Kenneth Grahame

  Lytton Strachey

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Michel de Montaigne

  René Descartes

  Richard Marsh

  Sax Rohmer

  Sir Richard Burton

  Talbot Mundy

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  W. W. Jacobs

  Series Eight

  Anna Katharine Green

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  The Brothers Grimm

  C. S. Lewis

  Charles and Mary Lamb

  Elizabeth von Arnim

  Ernest Bramah

  Francis Bacon

  Gilbert and Sullivan

  Grant Allen

  Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Hugh Walpole

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  John Locke

  John Muir

  Joseph Addison

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Lord Dunsany

  Marie Corelli

  Niccolò Machiavelli

  Ouida

  Richard Brinsley Sheridan

  Sigmund Freud

  Theodore Dreiser

  Walter Pater

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Series Nine

  Aldous Huxley

  August Strindberg

  Booth Tarkington

  C. S. Forester

  Erasmus

  Eugene Sue

  Fergus Hume

  Franz Kafka

  Gertrude Stein

  Giovanni Boccaccio

  Izaak Walton

  J. M. Synge

  Johanna Spyri

  John Galt

  Maurice Leblanc

  Max Brand

  Molière

  Norse Sagas

  R. D. Blackmore

  R. S. Surtees

  Sir Thomas More

  Stephen Leacock

  The Harvard Classics

  Thomas Love Peacock

  Thomas Paine

  William James

  Ancient Classics

  Achilles Tatius

  Aeschylus

  Ammianus Marcellinus

  Apollodorus

  Appian

  Apuleius

  Apollonius of Rhodes

  Aristophanes

  Aristotle

  Arrian

  Athenaeus

  Augustine

  Aulus Gellius

  Bede

  Cassius Dio

  Cato

  Catullus

  Cicero

  Claudian

  Clement of Alexandria

  Cornelius Nepos

  Demosthenes

  Dio Chrysostom

  Diodorus Siculus

  Dionysius of Halicarnassus

  Diogenes Laërtius

  Euripides

  Frontius

  Herodotus

  Hesiod

  Hippocrates

  Homer

  Horace

  Isocrates

  Josephus

  Julian

  Julius Caesar

  Juvenal

  Livy

  Longus

  Lucan

  Lucian

  Lucretius

  Marcus Aurelius

  Martial

  Nonnus

  Ovid

  Pausanias

  Petronius

  Pindar

  Plato

  Plautus

  Pliny the Elder

  Pliny the Younger

  Plotinus

  Plutarch

  Polybius

  Procopius

  Propertius

  Quintus Curtius Rufus

  Quintus Smyrnaeus

  Sallust

  Sappho

  Seneca the Younger

  Septuagint

  Sextus Empiricus

  Sidonius

  Sophocles

  Statius

  Strabo

  Suetonius

  Tacitus

  Terence

  Theocritus

  Thucydides

  Tibullus

  Varro

  Virgil

  Xenophon

  Delphi Poets Series

  A. E. Housman

  Alexander Pope

  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Andrew Marvell

  Beowulf

  Charlotte Smith

  Christina Rossetti

  D. H Lawrence (poetry)

  Dante Alighieri (English)

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  Delphi Poetry Anthology

  Edgar Allan Poe (poetry)

  Edmund Spenser

  Edward Lear

  Edward Thomas

  Edwin Arlington Robinson

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Emily Dickinson

  Epic of Gilgamesh

  Ezra Pound

  Friedrich Schiller (English)

  George Chapman

  George Herbert

  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  Gertrude Stein

  Hafez

  Heinrich Hei
ne

  Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Isaac Rosenberg

  James Russell Lowell

  Johan Ludvig Runeberg

  John Clare

  John Donne

  John Dryden

  John Gower

  John Keats

  John Milton

  John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

  Joseph Addison

  Kahlil Gibran

  Leigh Hunt

  Lord Byron

  Ludovico Ariosto

  Luís de Camões

  Matthew Arnold

  Matthew Prior

  Michael Drayton

  Nikolai Nekrasov

  Paul Laurence Dunbar

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Petrarch

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Robert Browning

  Robert Burns

  Robert Frost

  Robert Southey

  Rumi

  Rupert Brooke

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Sir Philip Sidney

  Sir Thomas Wyatt

  Sir Walter Raleigh

  Thomas Chatterton

  Thomas Gray

  Thomas Hardy (poetry)

  Thomas Hood

  Thomas Moore

  Torquato Tasso

  T. S. Eliot

  W. B. Yeats

  Walter Savage Landor

  Walt Whitman

  Wilfred Owen

  William Blake

  William Cowper

  William Wordsworth

  Masters of Art

  Albrecht Dürer

  Amedeo Modigliani

  Artemisia Gentileschi

  Camille Pissarro

  Canaletto

  Caravaggio

  Caspar David Friedrich

  Claude Lorrain

  Claude Monet

  Dante Gabriel Rossetti

  Diego Velázquez

  Donatello

  Edgar Degas

  Édouard Manet

  Edvard Munch

  El Greco

  Eugène Delacroix

  Francisco Goya

  Giotto

  Giovanni Bellini

  Gustave Courbet

  Gustav Klimt

  Hieronymus Bosch

  Jacques-Louis David

  James Abbott McNeill Whistler

  J. M. W. Turner

  Johannes Vermeer

  John Constable

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Michelangelo

  Paul Cézanne

  Paul Gauguin

  Paul Klee

  Peter Paul Rubens

  Piero della Francesca

  Pierre-Auguste Renoir

  Pieter Bruegel the Elder

  Sandro Botticelli

  Raphael

  Rembrandt van Rijn

  Thomas Gainsborough

  Tintoretto

  Titian

  Vincent van Gogh

  Wassily Kandinsky

  Great Composers

  Antonín Dvořák

  Franz Schubert

  Johann Sebastian Bach

 

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